The Dog Meat Mafia:
Corruption

The Dog Meat Mafia:
Corruption

By day, this is a forgettable farming village, a speck of civilization
sprung from the Mekong River banks.

Buffalo and man work the earth, scenting the breeze with toiled dirt.
Teenagers zip along rice pastures on noisy motorbikes. Across the river,
Laos’ scrubby shore is visible through a silver mist.

But after nightfall, the howling begins.

Long-haul trucks chug into town with stinking loads, bound for makeshift
platforms on the Mekong. Though tarps cover their cargo, there is no
mistaking it: the nuclear-strength musk of fur, urine and frightened animal.
Each truck can carry more than 700 dogs. Their stink singes the throat.

There is no permanent, sanctioned border crossing in the village of Baan
Pehng. But each night, the riverbanks here come alive with cargo trucks,
long-tail boats and smugglers working in sync to smuggle roughly 1,000 dogs
across the border.

No fees, no customs, no inspections. Just cage after cage of stray dogs,
freshly caught from the Thai countryside, secretly transported to Laos and
trucked to Hanoi-area abattoirs.

Recently, Phumpat has taken the parliament floor to recount the dog
trade’s ills: animal cruelty, the spread of rabies, unchecked smuggling –
even the rancid smell. So far, he says, his pleas have been met with apathy
and even threats from other politicians.

“There hasn’t been a crackdown because the officials, the police, they
all take bribes,” he says. “It’s deceitful. It’s corruption.”

According to police sources, politicians and traffickers themselves, the
trade exports more than 30,000 dogs per month — and even more as winter
approaches. During chilly weather, the meat is ceremonially consumed to warm
the body.

Though reviled by mainstream Thai society, killing and eating dogs
carries no legal penalty. Much of the other laws broken by regional dog
traffickers — such as noise disturbance and transporting unvaccinated
animals — are largely unenforced.

But Baan Pehng’s underground ports constitute the dog trade’s most
criminal element: nightly cross-border smuggling. The village is ideal for
trafficking to Vietnam, separated by only a 100-mile sliver of Laos.

Convincing authorities to tolerate the illegal ports requires extensive
pay-offs, traffickers and police say. One inside source in Baan Pehng says
the bribes amount to 25 baht per smuggled dog — about 75 cents — paid to a
local administrator who provides a one-stop kickback service that divvies
the cash out to every necessary authority.

“It’s a big network involving low-level politicians to high-level
politicians … who then use it to fund their political activities,” says
Phumpat. “I’m just asking the politicians and police to not look the other
way. To follow the law.”

But provincial and customs police largely regard dog smuggling as minor
compared to other illicit imports, such as drugs and illegal immigrants.

“Don’t give so much attention to these dogs,” says Maj. Gen. Panamporn
Eithiprasert, chief of Nakhon Phanom province. The chief, who claims the
highest volume of narcotic seizures in the region, insists that chasing dog
traffickers would only distract from real police work.

“With drugs, even a small amount can ruin lives. With illegal immigrants,
they take jobs from Thais,” he says. “But stray dogs? Is anyone taking
something from us that we value?”

Baan Pehng’s mayor, in a 2007 Thai TV documentary, compared dog
collectors to garbage men. “Society says those who trade dogs are low-lifes.
But I’m a politician and I say it’s an honest business,” Mayor Narong Pansan
told reporters. “It’s like selling garbage to foreigners for a profit.”

Baan Pehng locals say one smuggling boss paid tribute to his profession
by commissioning a statue of a helmeted dog, displayed on a pole on his
front lawn. Another recently murdered boss, a female called “Jae Gim,” still
inspires wild rumors from the grave.

“She owned 50 cars,” says Tassanee Hemha, who runs of a home-based dog
meat eatery in Nakhon Phanom province. “She was very rich, for sure. But
they say she overpromised the Vietnamese.”

At $10 per dog, the price Lao or Vietnamese distributors are said to pay
Thai traffickers, a night’s profit can easily reach into the tens of
thousands. If 1,000 are smuggled per day — the most widely accepted estimate
— the trade could generate as much as $3.6 million each year for Thai dog
syndicates.

Others insist the traffic is much heavier. “I’ve seen 5,000 cross in one
night. Never less than 2,000,” says Somchai, a former elected official and
retired tobacco farmer in Baan Pehng. Publishing his full name, he says,
would lead to payback from dog traffickers.

Somchai’s country estate sits within earshot of the noisy, illegal piers.
He has only seen the traffickers shut down once: during this year’s swine
flu scare. “There was some scrutiny then,” he says. “But, mostly, they never
stop. The countryside will never run out of dogs to catch and sell.”

By the Mekong, Somchai revealed a string of muddy ports littered with
bamboo ramps. Each was linked to the highway by cratered paths.

By 10 p.m., the first transfer truck arrived, creaking under the weight
of 700-plus dogs. Through a gauzy tarp draped over the cages, hundreds of
eyes flickered in the dark. The high yips and guttural woofs sounded out
across the fields for miles.

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